Weather and memories

Its been an awful week here with torrential rainfall but further south in the it has been even worse with extensive flooding. When I was looking at the news coverage, I thought back to 2007 when the same area suffered from devastating floods and we were cycling.

Our Norwegian friend was on his second cycle of the North Sea Cycle Route and we had planned to meet him as he came up the country and then cycle with him for some of the way. The idea was  use the Transpennine route to cross to the west and then carry on north and then cross back on the Hadrian’s Wall route for him to continue on through Northumberland.

The departure day arrived and I had a phone call very early in the morning from a friend who was working for the RAF and she told me under no circumstance to set out because of atrocious weather that was coming in. We were just about to depart and so kept our cycling clothes on in the hope that the rain would stop bouncing off the ground, It didn’t , so at 5.00pm we admitted that we wouldn’t be leaving that day.

Meanwhile poor Kj was coming up the country from the south in better weather, Next day we rode down past York and when we got to Stamford Bridge where we hoped to camp , the fire brigade were pumping out the streets, We managed to get through and found another campsite on higher ground. Next day, we rode down to Barton on Humber and camped to await the arrival of our friend, He phoned to say he was battling his way through and would we wait for him. Of course we would, so we spent a day looking around Hull. I can remember being surprised to see so much furniture out in the roads not being aware that there had been extensive flooding on the Hull side but not on the opposite bank of the river.

Kj arrived that afternoon and next day we set off on the Transpennine trail – in rain on and off all day. We tried to get through from the village of Snaith but were cut off by flood waters. That night we got permission to camp in an orchard as all the B&B’s and small hotels were full of displaced people from the floods.

The rain stopped at 3.00am and so we headed south towards Doncaster and noted that the river was level with the road surface. In Doncaster , a lady in the public toilets looked after our bicycles while we had breakfast in a café as our onward road was closed. The lady knew as her daughter couldn’t get through. About 8.30am the road was opened and so we carried on across the Pennines with rain pouring down most of the time. We had to divert many times as there was such extensive flooding , as there is now.

Once on the west side of the country , we stayed with an old kayaking friend who took us in and on another occasion when we were turned away from a campsite because it was waterlogged, the three of us ended up taking a family room in a B&B.

In all , we cycled  in wet clothes for 10 consecutive days. It wasn’t worth putting on dry stuff , as it just got wet at some stage. Kj reminded me that I even ended up cooking in the toilets in one campsite. You know the old saying , what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.

So I only cycled twice this past week and we had to go through a minor flooded road.

So I cycled 41 miles this week making a YTD total 3798miles